Erinna, a tale in blank verse, descriptive of the enthusiasm of a young poetess, who gives up all her soul to minstrelsy. It is manifest that she has painted in it much of what she feels, or has felt, in her own person. We would scarcely dare to say as much of 'Love's last Lesson.' There is in several of the lines of this poem an energy of despair, which in so young a lady not a little surprised us.

Teach it me, if you can,-forgetfulness!

I surely shall forget, if you can bid me;

I who have worshipp'd thee, my god on earth,
I who have bow'd me at thy lightest word.
Your last command, "Forget me," will it not
Sink deeply down within my inmost soul?
Forget thee!-ay, forgetfulness will be
A mercy to me. By the many nights
When I have wept for that I dared not sleep,--
A dream had made me live my woes again,
Acting my wretchedness, without the hope
My foolish heart still clings to, though that hope
Is like the opiate which may lull awhile,
Then wake to double torture; by the days
Pass'd in lone watching and in anxious fears,
When a breath sent the crimson to my cheek,
Like the red gushing of a sudden wound;
By all the careless looks and careless words
Which have to me been like the scorpion's stinging;
By happiness blighted, and by thee, for ever;
By thy eternal work of wretchedness;

By all my wither'd feelings, ruin'd health,

Crush'd hopes, and rifled heart, I will forget thee!
Alas! my words are vanity. Forget thee!
Thy work of wasting is too surely done.
The April shower may pass and be forgotten,
The rose fall and one fresh spring in its place,
And thus it may be with light summer love.
It was not thus with mine: it did not spring,
Like the bright colour on an evening cloud,
Into a moment's life, brief, beautiful;
Not amid lighted halls, when flatteries
Steal on the ear like dew upon the rose,
As soft, as soon dispersed, as quickly pass'd;
But you first call'd my woman's feelings forth,

And taught me love ere I had dream'd love's name.
I lov'd unconsciously: your name was all
That seem'd in language, and to me the world
Was only made for you: in solitude,

When passions hold their interchange together,
Your image was the shadow of my thought;
Never did slave, before his eastern lord,
Tremble as I did when I met your eye,

And yet each look was counted as a prize;

I laid your words up in my heart like pearls
Hid in the ocean's treasure-cave. At last
I learn'd my heart's deep secret: for I hoped,
I dream'd you loved me; wonder, fear, delight,
Swept my heart like a storm: my soul, my life,
Seem'd all too little for your happiness;
Had I been Mistress of the starry worlds
That light the midnight, they had all been yours,
And I had deem'd such boon but poverty.
As it was, I gave all I could-my love,
My deep, my true, my fervent, faithful love :
And now you bid me learn forgetfulness :
It is a lesson that I soon shall learn.
There is a home of quiet for the wretched,

A somewhat dark, and cold, and silent rest,

But still it is rest,-for it is the grave.'-pp. 298-301.

It is not to be doubted that in this, as well as in several other passages in her works, Miss Landon displays an intensity of feeling, which requires only to be properly cultivated and directed, in order that it may be rendered subservient to her poetical talents. That she is the mistress of such talents, it would be unjust to deny. But if she continue to write verses only to afford a vehicle to her feelings, without paying any regard to the rythm of her lines, the beauty of her imagery, or the compression of her thoughts; she may perhaps gratify herself, but her name will perish in the public esteem, much more rapidly than it rose.

ART. VII.-Memoirs of Mrs. Siddons, interspersed with Anecdotes of Authors and Actors. By James Boaden, Esq. 2 vols. 8vo. 11. 8s. London. Colburn. 1826.

IF Mr. Boaden had transposed his title, and placed that part of it foremost which stands last, he would have truly informed his readers, of the nature of his work. In point of fact, it consists of 'anecdotes of authors and actors, interspersed with memoirs of Mrs. Siddons'. But a name is every thing with writers of Mr. Boaden's stamp. Many readers will be tempted to look into these volumes, as their title now stands, whereas they might have remained "a dead weight" in the publisher's lumber-rooms, had the mass of their real contents been properly indicated by the author.

The name, we confess, "took us in," although we ought to have been sufficiently warned by Mr. Boaden's memoirs of John Kemble. For in that work, as well as in the present, the author, as if from a constitutional infirmity, that never permits him to dwell long on any one subject, indulged himself, and wearied out the patience of his readers, by recollections de omnibus rebus et

VOL. IV.

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multis aliis. It seems that the disease grows upon him; for if we grant that upon the whole, about half of one of the two volumes is occupied with the theatrical career of Mrs. Siddons, we make a liberal allowance indeed. The remaining three parts seem to have been expressly reserved for whatever came uppermost in Mr. Boaden's memory at the time of writing, no matter whether remotely, or immediately, or not at all connected with his principal subject, or with any other subject of whatever nature, with which he has thought proper to replenish his pages. We have often laughed, and we fear it was the only amusement we derived from this medley, on observing the courageous facility, with which the author introduced into consecutive paragraphs, topics the most heterogeneous. On some occasions, when he fears the transition to be monstrous, he modestly separates his paragraphs by a line, 'n order to make still wider the horizon of his lucubrations.

Now if Mr. Boaden had been blessed with the gift of telling a bad anecdote well, or a good one any way at all, we dare say his readers would have easily forgiven him for his total want of order. But we must say that, although he has remembered many years, during which it was difficult for any ordinary observer to escape getting into contact with a great variety of interesting characters, and hearing a thousand anecdotes concerning them, which the common records of the time have failed to transmit to us; yet Mr. Boaden has contrived, with much fruitless industry, to put together a vast quantity of materials, most of which might be found in, or at least suggested by, the numerous theatrical biographers that have lately overwhelmed our press. Of the anecdotes which he may claim as of his own preservation, there are few that, to use a culinary phrase, have not "spoiled in the keeping." They are unseasoned by a particle of wit or humour; and as we open jar after jar, (to continue the metaphor), we are disappointed and vexed, to find so many of them musty.

As to that small portion of his volumes which is really given to Mrs. Siddons, it is scarcely a proper description of its character to say that it is composed of Memoirs.' Nothing, absolutely nothing, is related of her private life, which had not been made public before; and indeed the author avows that, from that amiable and highly-gifted woman, he has received no sort of assistance. He does not seem either to have derived the smallest aid for his work from any member of her family, and we doubt much whether Mrs. Siddons, or any one of the Kembles, has even in any manner sanctioned this publication, although the author has suffered none of them to escape the infliction of his adulation.

The truth of the matter seems to be this. Mr. Boaden, from his early youth, has been a theatrical amateur. From the second or third bench in the pit, he watched the performances of Mrs. Siddons, from the commencement of her career to its conclusion; he took notes of her "hits," and of her dresses, and sometimes wrote

criticisms upon her in the periodical journals. These notes and these criticisms he now reproduces, and expands them as much as he can, by introducing passages from the different tragedies in which she shone. Not satisfied with this, Mr. Boaden analyzes plays in which Mrs. Siddons never appeared at all; and amuses his fancy, at the expense of his readers, in conjecturing how she would electrify her auditors in this part, and how in that she would melt them into tears! To these criticisms, Mr. Boaden has added some scraps of letters, and a few stinted disjointed anecdotes, which had already appeared in various publications of the time; and though, as we have already observed, these topics occupy scarcely half of one of the two volumes, he has the coolness to entitle them, Memoirs of Mrs. Siddons.'

"But at least, Mr. Boaden is entitled to some praise for his criticisms?" So far as they are historical; that is to say, so far as they describe the mode in which Mrs. Siddons dressed, or the triumphs which she achieved, in particular characters, and the manner in which she achieved them, Mr. Boaden may undoubtedly claim the merit of fidelity. But his comments are ambitious of a higher eulogy: as he is credulous enough to believe, that his Life of Kemble has been placed by the public voice, next to the delightful "Apology" of Colley Cibber,' he would hardly be contented, if his critical labours were not ranged, at least, next to those of Addison. We have no objection to the arrangement, provided the distance between the two shall be adjusted, with a reference to the pithy maxim which declares, that "there is only one step from the sublime to the ridiculous."

As, however, we have no wish to prevent the author from pleading his own cause, we shall extract his own opinion of his work from the introduction.

'The period between the first season of Mrs. Siddons at Drury-lane Theatre, and her return, in 1782, I have reviewed with some care; because I would have it possess its portion of entertainment, and I know not where any tolerable record of it is to be found. The absence of Mrs. Siddons for six years from the capital, may perhaps remind the reader of the retirement of Achilles from the field before Troy, when insulted by Agamemnon. But the FATHER of POETRY was able to compensate the absence even of Achilles; and the very catalogue of the Grecian commanders, and their ships, is relieved or invigorated by so many sparkling touches of genius, that in no part of the divine Iliad does he more decidedly demonstrate his immense superiority over his imitators.

"Such bliss to one alone,

Of all the sons of soul was known,
And Heaven and Fancy, kindred powers,
Have now o'erturn'd th' inspiring bowers,

Or curtain'd close such scene from every future view."

'My work is of a nature to rest entirely upon the accuracy and ability of its author. I could receive but little aid, if I had sought any: my love

for the subject has never wearied in the task; and I presume to say, that a more faithful record will not easily be found.'-vol. i., pp. xvii, xviii.

The reader will not have failed to remark, the comparison which the author has modestly insinuated in this passage, as capable of being drawn between himself and Homer. Achilles absented himself for a while from the camp of the Greeks, but the poet filled up the period of that absence with the inexhaustible resources of his genius. Mrs. Siddons, after her first season, staid away from the capital six years. That period, which otherwise must have been a blank in dramatic history, our author has reviewed with some care.' He'would have it possess its portion of entertainment,' and for this purpose he must draw from his own stores, as he knows not where (besides) any tolerable record is to be found.' This 'work is of a nature to rest entirely upon the accuracy and ability of the author.' Therefore, we are desired to infer, that no part of these divine Memoirs is relieved or invigorated by so many sparkling touches of genius, as that which compensates for the six years exile of Mrs. Siddons; in no part does the author more decidedly demonstrate his immense superiority over his rivals. The conclusion is irresistible in every way-in its logic and its drollery. It is intended, besides, as an apology for the first volume, and a great part of the second; for after some notice of the family of this female Achilles, and her first appearance on the field of her glory, the author deems himself licensed to give not only a catalogue of all the plays that were acted during her absence, and of the actors who appeared in them; but to go into all other matters whatsoever, until his heroine resumes the sceptre.

After much pompous circumlocution, in which the author relates Mr. Gibbon's solicitude about his pedigree; and after fancying all the honours of which, for aught he knows,' the Kemble family may have to boast, he at length comes to the plain fact, of which Mrs. Siddons need not be ashamed, that her father, Roger Kemble, was the manager of an itinerant company of players, and a catholic. His wife was a protestant, the daughter of an actor; and upon their marriage it was arranged, that the sons should follow the religion of the father, and the daughters that of their mother. Two years before her brother, John Kemble, Mrs. Siddons was born at Brecknock, in South Wales, in the year 1755, and was named Sarah, after her mother. From the latter she is said to have derived that exact and deliberate articulation, which constituted one of the principal charms of her delivery. She was at an early age the prima donna of her father's company. As early as in her thirteenth year, she sustained the heroines of our English operas, and sang any incidental music, that either the play itself, or the copious attraction of the play-bill in those days demanded.' Having given us this scanty information concerning the early years of Mrs. Siddons, the mere mention of a play-bill puts the author upon his metal, and off he scampers to a discussion upon play-bills in